Former State Rep. Perry Hooper Jr., who was arrested in October on allegations of sexual assault that have since been dismissed, is suing the city of Montgomery and its police chief.
“The Plaintiff and his family have suffered emotionally and financially,” the lawsuit says. “The only way for the Plaintiff to save his reputation is to view said file (video of the incident) and expose what was an obvious political set-up by the plaintiff’s political enemies.”
He will also be seeking to have a video of the incident in question released.
Hooper, who served in the Alabama House for decades, believes his arrest was a political setup orchestrated by Montgomery Democrats.
“Perry was the state coordinator for Donald Trump,” attorney Thomas Gallion III said. “He’d been writing many letters to the editor (of a prominent Montgomery news source) supporting Trump.”
Gallion was also frank in his assessment of how the city handled the case.
“The most interesting thing about the Perry Hooper thing is the city, I can just tell you this in my opinion, they have given false testimony across the board,” he said. “They made up and released the press release before Perry Hooper was even booked.”
“That was the stupidest thing they did because it shows they were setting him up.”
Griffith Waller, the city’s communications director, said the city could not comment on pending litigation but that in this case Montgomery police “did everything by the book.”
Austen Shipley is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News.